Geomatics Magazines - The Top 40 Ranking

Geomatics magazines have gradually evolved with the rhythm of a science whose definition depends a lot on technological advancement and the fusion of disciplines around the earth sciences. Current trends killed storied print magazines, reoriented the priority topic of other publications, and bridged the gap between what is a conventional magazine with a digital blog post. The added value in knowledge management and synergy between actors became more important with what the role of conventional publisher moved to coordination of international events, webinar service and publication of digital content.

Saying which are the top 40 is reckless, especially if they are to be categorized. So this time I will use some criteria that justify a neutral measurement, clarifying that they are not the only publications on this subject but it is expected that it will be a starting point for lovers of reading and companies looking for a diffusion situation.

It is also important to mention that the "magazine" format is not necessarily the one we have understood so far, perhaps it would be better to say "publications on geomatics" because today, rather than valuing the format, we give more points to the usefulness of Internet spaces. in its different modalities; forums, blogs, portals, newsletters, wikis… together they complement each other.

Measurement using the Alexa ranking

I am using the measurement of Alexa, dated August 15, 2013. This ranking is dynamic and changes over time depending on good or bad practices of websites and adjustments of Google's algorithms.

In general, it is not equivalent to readers or visitors, but is a referent of the health of a site.

The lower the Alexa ranking, the better it is, which is why Facebook.com and Google.com are usually in the first two numbers. It is not so easy to be below the top 100,000 and although there is also a ranking by country in this case I have preferred to do it using the global one, indicating in the table the ranking for Spain as additional information.

Where did the list of geomatics magazines come from?

I have used a total of 40 posts, sorted down to a rank under 7,000,000. While that is a fatal position for a site, I have extended it there to be able to measure the growth of some magazines that deserve better luck.

• 21 of these magazines are in English. Most are contained in a List of geomatics magazines Which I published some time ago; Although at that time only mentioned 9 main and others were hardly listed, including some that are owned by companies dedicated to the manufacture of equipment or applications.
• 8 are from the Hispanic context, precisely those whose ranking was within the selected scale. All in Spanish, with the exception of Geofumadas which has its version in English. Here the list is quite well known, with the variant included in Cartografia.cl, which we had never mentioned before.
• 7 are of Brazilian origin, considering that it is our complementary context. All in Portuguese, with the MundoGEO variant that has a partial version in English and Spanish. My apologies to our Rio friends, but it is the list that I have been able to identify, surely there is another one out there with a better ranking in the queue.
• And finally I have included 4 of the 5 Denver area magazines that have recently joined the Location Media Alliance - LMA. They are also in English, but some of them with the alliance changed their name and domain, so they have had to start their growth almost from scratch; For that matter, Sensors & Systems and Informed Infraestructures are what we used to know as Vector1 and Vectormedia. Due to its ranking, it does not appear in the Spatial Apogeo list, which is what was previously called Imaging Notes. It will be interesting to see its growth, since about a year ago in a bar in Amsterdam we were discussing with one of its ideologues how the ZatocaConnect / Z! Spaces model works ... and over time I have been able to see that some of the idea embodied in the LMA .
• The Brazilian ones are marked in green, in orange those of Spanish and celestial those of the Alliance.

The Top 10 list

The chart does not represent the first 4 journals because it loses its sense of visibility by the high ranking down the 100,000.

Directions Magazine stands out unsurprisingly as a monster, with an enviable ranking of 17,000. After his failed attempt with his Spanish version, he decided to focus on his privileged position and make an alliance with MundoGEO for the southern cone.

The first surprise is Mapsmaniac, formerly known as Google Maps Manía, which this year made the domain change and although they do not have a miserable logo they have achieved a respectful search engine optimization in just a few months. Coordinates are also surprising, who have worked hard this year to be visible in search engines and surpass many in position.

Notice that this is dynamic, you can see how mapsmaniac from May started with your new domain; As well as Coordinates.

The rest of the queue in English are GIS Cafe, Gis Lounge, GPS World and GIS User.

It is satisfying to see how MundoGeo positions itself in fifth place and the Spanish sector include The Franz Blog (9) and Geofumadas (10) within this top 10.

The list of 10 to 20

Here appear Cartesia (11), Gabriel Ortiz (15). Possibly the reasons why these two legendary sites appear in these positions is due to the lack of platform update, separation of sites in different data managers, or the simple fact of not having a dedication to causes for which Google penalizes each some time.

Solitaire appears the blog of Anderson Madeiros (Click Geo) in the position 14 and Gerson Beltrán in the 17.

The list of 21 to 30

Already on this list are two more Portuguese-language sites, MappingGIS, which is growing after the dedication of these guys this year, and Asian Surveying & Maps, which is the publication with the highest ranking in the LMA. Sensors & Systems appears at position 30, considering it is a new name, we believe it will grow faster than ASM.

The list of 31 to position 40

And finally, in the queue are the other two LMA magazines. Then I include Geospatial Media for the ranking it has, although this is the same company from India that produces Geo Intelligence, and that emptied the contents of Geo Development in this space.

Of the Hispanic context is Cartografia.cl (33), Orbemapa (39) and three Brazilian sites.

In conclusion, it is important to rescue the presence of the 8 Spanish-language sites within a complex list to scale. Wherever possible we will follow up on this publication to find lessons learned from this new geomatics journal experience.

How to improve Alexa ranking

It is not the goal of this article, but the advice can be of use to anyone. In general, there are a few tricks that work:

• Preferably, avoid using subdomains; It is not the same to have a site in blogspot or wordpress.com than a domain of its own.
• Also the sites must register them in Alexa and follow the steps to claim the authorship.
• Write regularly. The loss of time in seeing how the statistics descend does not help at all.
• Read about optimization techniques. Investing in SEO is a good option, but you have to learn just as we learned more complicated things in college.
• Avoid techniques that may penalize the site; One of them is to abandon it.
• And finally: write us, we have tricks that have worked for us. editor (at) geofumadas.com

Sure there are other magazines not mentioned, some for having a ranking beyond the limit considered. If you find one ... Report it.

An update of this article was made in 2019